WWII vet thanks deployed servicemen with Turn For Troops

For many people Veterans Day was about stopping to say thank you to the men and women who serve our country and one local WWII veteran is participating in a unique and heartfelt way to say thank you to troops serving overseas.

Rocky Tuttle was just 17 when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1945. He spent his time in an air crew shuttling troops across France at a time when the German surrender was being finalized and the war in the European Theater of Operations was winding down.

"I don't think that I hardly got through basic training before I got pretty homesick," he said.

Tuttle understands how important it is to know that someone back home cares, even if it’s a complete stranger, so that's what he's set out to do by handcrafting beautiful wooden pens for the brothers and sisters serving overseas he's never met.

"Oh I can just imagine when you get a handcrafted pen, and the people can come in here and learn how to do it. That is how I got started five years ago," he said.

In the five years Tuttle has been participating in Turn For Troops he guesses he's made about 400 pens, each one sent to troops serving overseas with a heartfelt thank you from a member of the Greatest Generation to the current generation of servicemen and women.